Record share of kindergartners missed required vaccines last year as Trump executive order takes aim at state mandates

Record Kindergartner Vaccine Exemptions Spark Debate

Activelifezero.com – A record share of kindergartners missed at least one required vaccination during the 2025-26 school year, according to data released Monday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The finding lands as the Trump administration pushes new federal guidelines aimed at expanding parental options around childhood immunization. An executive order signed last week directs federal agencies to encourage states to broaden religious and medical exemptions, though the legal authority to set school-entry vaccine rules remains firmly with the fifty state legislatures.

Exemption Rates Reach an All-Time High

The CDC figures show that 4.2 percent of kindergartners carried an exemption for at least one state-mandated vaccine last year, leaving roughly 157,000 newly enrolled children without full coverage. That represents nearly 20,000 more exempted students than the prior school year and marks the highest share on record — approximately double the rate seen a decade ago. Pockets of low immunization are widening across the country, public-health officials warn, creating conditions ripe for outbreaks of diseases once considered controlled.

Only 0.2 percent of those exemptions were granted for medical reasons, a proportion that has remained essentially flat for years. The overwhelming majority fall under religious or personal-belief categories. Exemption rates climbed in every state except nine, and nearly half of all states now report exemption shares above five percent. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, just four states — California, Connecticut, Maine, and New York — do not permit non-medical exemptions at all.

New York eliminated its religious-exemption option in 2019 after measles outbreaks of a scale unseen in decades swept through the state. The latest CDC data indicate that the measles-mumps-rubella vaccination rate among kindergartners slipped marginally, from 92.5 percent to 92.4 percent, yet that figure remains well short of the 95 percent coverage threshold needed to sustain herd immunity.

State Responses to the Federal Executive Order

The order tasks the Department of Justice, the Department of Education, and the Department of Health and Human Services with tying federal funding to state compliance with the new guidelines. States, however, are largely unmoved. Texas’s health department told CNN by email that federal recommendations do not alter its existing requirements. Other state officials framed their response as a reaffirmation of science-based immunization policy.

“Vaccines are our most effective defense against vaccine-preventable illnesses. In Maine, vaccines remain available at no cost to eligible children through the Maine CDC’s Immunization Program. Maine’s school and child-care immunization requirements remain unchanged by federal actions to date,” said Dr. Puthiery Va, director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Legal friction is already emerging in states that recently altered their exemption rules. Mississippi began permitting religious exemptions in 2023 following a federal court order, while a comparable move in West Virginia faces active litigation. Before those changes, both states ranked among the highest in childhood vaccination coverage under some of the nation’s strictest mandates. Any further modification to state exemption statutes would require legislative action, and many statehouses will not reconvene until January.

Public-health researchers stress that rebuilding parental trust in vaccine safety is the linchpin for reversing the slide in immunization rates. “If more and more parents choose not to vaccinate their children for non-medical reasons, we will no doubt see a rise in disease outbreaks,” said Dr. William Moss, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who has tracked childhood immunization trends for decades.

Frequently Asked Questions

What percentage of kindergartners had a vaccine exemption last school year? According to CDC data, 4.2 percent of kindergartners in the 2025-26 school year held an exemption for at least one required vaccine, the highest share ever recorded.

Can states still require vaccines for school entry? Yes. All fifty states maintain their own school-entry immunization laws, and the new federal executive order issues recommendations rather than mandates. State legislatures retain the authority to set, modify, or repeal exemption provisions.

Which states do not allow non-medical vaccine exemptions? As of the latest data, California, Connecticut, Maine, and New York are the only four states that do not permit religious or personal-belief exemptions for school vaccines.

What is the herd-immunity threshold for MMR? Approximately 95 percent coverage is required to prevent sustained measles transmission. The kindergarten MMR rate last year was 92.4 percent, below that threshold.